


Duality Unchained, Part 1: The Advent Hunt

by Talontales



Series: The Talon legacy [11]
Category: Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic (Video Game)
Genre: Dialogue Heavy, Drama, F/F, Gen, Intrigue, Romance, Shadow of Revan timeline, Sith Politics, Somewhat canon divergent, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-06
Updated: 2021-02-10
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:54:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27921106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Talontales/pseuds/Talontales
Summary: "Citizens of the Sith Empire and its environs - I am Darth Arkous, from the Sphere of Military Offense.It is with profound sorrow and unending heartache that I stand before you today, for a most tragic incident has occurred, which will no doubt engulf the nation. I must announce that Darth Imperius, your illustrious, magnanimous and wise leader of the Sphere of Ancient Knowledge, has perished.In a heroic and courageous set of events, she eliminated Grand Master Satele Shan of the Jedi Order in a ferocious battle of wills, striking a staunch blow against our enemies. But, in doing so, she also opened herself to a final, ghastly and cowardly counterattack. Her brave sacrifice shall not be forgotten!"
Relationships: Female Jedi Knight | Hero of Tython/Female Sith Warrior
Series: The Talon legacy [11]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/414158
Kudos: 6





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> **Main characters:** Zal'riva Vivees _(Female Twi'lek Sith Warrior)_ , Ktila _(Female Chiss Jedi Knight)_ , Lana Beniko  
>  **Secondary characters:** Lord Scourge, Kira Carsen, Baeleki _(Female Togruta Jedi Padawan OC)_ , T7-O1, Ashara Zavros, Khem Val, Francine Daimort _(Female Human OC)_ , Csapla'kore'Vhako - "Lakorev" _(Male Chiss Sith Apprentice OC)_ , Darth Marr, Jaesa Willsaam, Vette, Ayzera Marr _(Female Miraluka Sith Apprentice OC)_ , Kaarema Nih'etat _(Female Mirialan Jedi Knight OC)_ , Theron Shan, Darth Arkous
> 
> _Yo, I'm Claire Talon_
> 
> _This is next story in the Talon Legacy plotline, so it's highly recommended you look at the rest first, if you're at all interested. If you don't, then uh...well, this'll be a real ride. A very out of place ride._   
>  _It'll contain several parts of the same story - the overarching being "Duality Unchained". Each section will be conforming with multi-part plots I did in the previous fic, precluding that this is seriously more large-scale. At least for this first one (which admittedly is the longest). I'm splitting them up since it's just handier for tags and shit ___
> 
> _I still have the link with fundamental profiles I've provided in every fic thus far, but[here it is again.](https://creativebankruptcies.blogspot.com/2018/12/talon-legacy.html)_

Kaas City, on the imperial-ruled world of Dromund Kaas, a center of civilization which normally is not solely rather untouched by the abuses of war and struggles that occur in the prominent sectors of the galaxy, but abuzz with activity. Come the commencement of the latest stages of the standoffs at the fields of battle, however, with numbers decreasing, such metropolises have therefore also seen less inclusion of people, and those who linger inside this tempestuous world must take on an ever-hiking set of duties.

But even so, Kaas City cannot have escaped the sensations and horrors that shook the foundations of the Empire when the news arrived at their doorsteps – Darth Imperius, the unofficial ‘Queen of Dromund Kaas’ for the last year or so, has perished.  
Some weeks have progressed past that day, the hour where her death and greatest contest with the Republic and New Empire was announced to the nation at large. The reactions had been wide and various – glee, sorrow, calls for death of their enemies and the plundering of a fallen Sith’s property. The Empire is persistently one to live in the here and now.

But as a vessel comes down for a landing in the spaceport a few miles astray of the perimeter of the city and a shuttle is reserved to transport the overriding personage, this very soul cannot read any news on her datapad that Imperius’ holdings have yet to be raided. One can stand to reason that the defenses of these facilities are sufficiently defended not for this to unfold right off the bat, or perchance the predators are giving themselves a moment to search for the perfect chance.

Regardless, it does not bother the lady who sooner or later exits the shuttle doors and sets her feet onto the landing platform outside the Imperial Citadel, home of the Dark Council. This woman is well-known to the denizens of the gigantesque tower as well, and not all of it is due to her non-human visage. That said, the crimson skin adorned with keen-edged black tattoos that extend to her body and lekku, the muscular frame, the crown-like headband, the dense metal gear, the lengthy grey coat and scarred left boundary of her face does stand out rather fiercely.

None can mistake the Emperor’s Wrath, Darth Zal’riva Vivees, former slave and now one of the utmost significant Sith in the Empire when she strolls by. Her flat-out presence induces the subordinates and officers alike to bow their heads at her passing or salute sharply, though she pays them little mind.  
Zal has never been the shape of person to obligate obeisance or bask in the groveling of those who can be marked as her inferiors. Respect is all well and good, but fear has more use when applied to her enemies. Her underlings should hold the comfort to stay fastened onto their tasks, so that they can efficiently speed their course along. And besides, her arrival in the capital at this stage is not beholden to gathering resources or extracting favors out of people that are lower in the hierarchy. No, her purpose is linked to the adjuration of a compatriot of hers, one she hasn’t exchanged a single word with succeeding the…tragic happenings of the Dark Councilor they’re affiliated with.

Filtering into the building, up and down its assorted corridors and tiers, she continues onward until the moment where she’s released into the hallways of the Citadel scene which the Sphere of Ancient Knowledge has its hands around. Within, the people are more thoroughly in touch with her than in the prevailing sectors of the Empire, as she’s dropped in on them to chat with Valcera on a good many occasions. It is therefore that the honors she’s granted are not as heavy-handed on almost every juncture.

But acquaintance or no, Zal can’t help obtaining a vivid impression from these routes as she traverses them – gloom and unnerving deluges. With Val’s departure, her retainers are hereby worried and ambivalent of what the future will retain. And can she fault them for it? Plenty of people are capable of prophesying what comes with the bursting of a Sith’s power base, without regard to the present state of affairs. There may be a war which ravages half the galaxy, but to assume avarice is daunted by such fancies is mere wishful thinking.

But Zal does not converse with any select presence in the dominant offices or passageways of Imperius’ agency, for she makes inroads into the innermost sanctuaries occupied by the late Darth, her private chambers and offices. Only a shadow of the personnel signed onto the lists of the Sphere are welcome there, but Zal is not one of their employees.

Grabbing the elevator down in seclusion, she exits at the accurate level and presses on firmly, until she beholds the prodigious titanium blast doors, and inevitably, the being who stands at a guard post of it – none other than the scarlet-hide behemoth of a creature, the dashade Khem Val.  
He’s clothed in a tight grey attire with loincloth at the bottom, sleeveless and pantsless. His arms are wreathed, and his smoldering glare unfailingly slapped onto whosoever is bound for this level.

“Khem, it’s been some time.” The dashade grunts at her, and doesn’t prove to cut her any slack, but she can recognize that he’s more of an unfluctuating sort, and therefore this isn’t intrinsically an implication that he’s mad at or disapproving of her. But then again…it’s also in the cards of being very much so.  
“I’m to convene with a certain someone in there. I trust you’re acquainted with this?”

Khem abides with his stare for manifold seconds, sparing Zal no reprieve to process whether he’ll correspond to this arrangement, or if she has to bust through him. But in a matter of ten instants, unprompted, the dashade steps aside, setting the course for her.  
“Go, little Sith.”

Val’s servants are quite the...erratic variety. It’s a wonder she held them all together.  
“…right.”

Checking into the office, in a couple of seconds, Zal gets a fix on the one identity in range, erect over one of the fringes of the substantial central and exposed foundation. With her back turned apart from the entryway, a black cape with green lining fastened to it and her head overlaid with blonde locks, Zal remarks a human that she’s now attended on a fair few instances, someone who possesses a great place in Val’s heart.

Ahead of uttering her name, Zal takes a look at what this lady is spotlighting – to the fore of her rests a hologram which proceeds from goings-on that was given rise to no more than a few days past. Zal tips her head edgewise, recognizing the gathered masses, the tinge of the walls, the carpeted floors, the flowers clapped above the metal and flag-coated hollow casket of her friend, Valcera Nih’etat, throughout the day of her state funeral. She doesn’t miss a beat about it, as Zal was accounted for in the guest list.  
Although she won’t sugarcoat the matter, seeing as it was quite a bizarre concern for her. None of it came off as…real. Val’s unplanned demise, the suspect circumstances of this incident, the hasty arraying of the funeral, the unanticipated speeches by Darth Arkous. Whatever would persuade that man to even get the taste for a eulogy dedicated to Valcera? She absolutely thumbed a ride for him to the Dark Council, but they weren’t private with one another. Were they? Val never broached the terms of them rubbing elbows at any rate. Something surrounding this smells shady, but she has no ground to stand on.

Abruptly, the human then shifts to the twi’lek and bows her head mildly in greeting.  
“Wrath.”

Zal stares at her thoughtfully and then crosses her arms.  
“So, that’s the mood we’re in today.”

She breathes out in irritation.  
“Shut that down.”

“What? I was jesting, Lana.”  
Lana Beniko, advisor to the Dark Councilor Darth Arkous of Military Offense and now approaching two-year girlfriend of Valcera. But Lana is not in a jesting spirit, which in her defense is not befitting of their operating status.  
“Alright, that was…in poor taste. I’m sorry.”

Lana shrugs and then lowers her elbows, diverging to the holographic display.  
“Don’t worry about it.”

Zal trails the yellow gaze of the advisor.  
“Watching the rerun of it? That they would broadcast it once more, now _that_ is what I’d call unseemly.”  
Lana doesn’t respond, not right away. She endures with her regard of the pictures, ever silent and watchful. Zal hence starts to gain some rashness herself.  
“I said it before, but…you know you have my condolences. For this, for the loss, for…”  
Well, she purports to have stated it, but in truth, she dispatched a notice. Lana rebuffed her requests of seeing the human alone previous to this day, notwithstanding she wouldn’t explain the substance of this refusal.

And then now, she groans in disgust.  
“It’s intolerable.”

“…pardon?”

“This sham of a bloody funeral.”

Zal blinks, mildly confused.  
“Eh? …it was a bit stiff-necked, true, but…”

“No, not that part. It’s so exceedingly artificial. I mean, look at the blasted top of the ‘coffin’ too. They arranged a wreath of ilthin flowers. Could the imbeciles be any more conspicuous? Everyone who knew her was aware she despised that plant.”

Zal fondles her lower lip.  
“Hmm. Ah, yes. Wasn’t that the bloom her initial masters grew, as a young slave?”

“Precisely. She can’t stand the smell. Why in all the galaxy’s hells would any one of her loved ones permit them to grace the place of her pyre?” She wheels around to Zal blisteringly. “They wouldn’t. Not under any circumstances.”

The twi’lek takes in her stance and determination for a few moments, contemplating what this is slowly but inevitably driving them towards.  
“I take it you didn’t summon me here to discuss the variables of the rite, then.”

In all-out frustration, Lana shuts it off and feeds on the entire view of Zal. The agitation is plain and simple above the human’s face, as well as oozing square out of her, the whiff hailing off the Force letting Zal know.  
“I refuse to believe Val is dead.”

Ah. Right to the point, then. Zal does appreciate that, albeit she herself doesn’t grandstand with any stupefaction at it.  
“You can’t, or you won’t?”

“Either. _Both._ It’s not that I….” She scoops up a shuddering piece of air, her eyes roving downwards. She’s not shivering, but her extraneous thoughts are so bare that Zal can taste them.  
“She hasn’t evaporated from my mind. There are vestigial…feelings from her that lodge themselves into my chest. Her…essence. She literally cannot be dead, for on the assumption she was, this momentum would’ve expired.”

Zal deliberates on this information internally. She isn’t treating this as a discombobulating development, for she herself has a close connection with a particular Jedi, but hearing Lana speaking this way…it does sound to her as if the Force bond between the Sith couplet is an ardent and tenacious one.  
“You’re positive of this, are you?”

“Damn right I am. I would’ve detected it. But to this day, I’ve experienced…not a thing. Her presence is indeed sparsely…diminished, but it is not gone.”

Wrath rubs a few of her fingers down the edge of her elbow, adjusting this in her head.  
“But what would she be going for, to impose a restriction of this class? Is she hiding from her enemies? That’s not her style.”

Lana exhales with notable fractions of aggravation and dismay, drawing her face to the side.  
“That is what I’d like to know…but I’m as clueless as you are as to the result of whatever her mission had been and what she was drawn into. However, she’s had enemies before and after her capacity as a Dark Councilor. If I were to theorize, I’d venture a guess that this is related. It has to be.”

“Any thesis touching her whereabouts, then?”

“None. But…once more, a mere bet – a capture reads to me as an apt event. I wish to discover who, and for what purpose.”

“Do we have leads? A breath of her path?”

“Little worth speaking of.” She peers at the twi’lek once more. “How comprehensive was Val’s description of her next mission to you?”

Zal reflects on their encounter some weeks prefacing the untimely product that they’re now trying to resolve.  
“Uhh. She was…meeting with someone?”

“Quite so. It was designed to be a confidential peace gathering, to discuss terms between the Republic and the Empire. This full-dress affair was supposedly charted by Binary Star Realty, a housing corporation in the midst of the most profitable and exhaustive sectors. As you might be informed, Simiris – Francine’s girlfriend – inferred that she was a member of staff who operated in the reaches of the Empire.”

“Inferred? I thought this was the fact of the matter.”

“I’ve come to construe that ‘fact’ is a fuzzy fragment when pertaining to this woman.”

“I see. And you said ‘supposedly’?”

“Yes, for I’ve scoured the public archives of the organization, but have found no mention of this concourse. Then again, this was meant to be a private call, and thus I set some of my associates into examining the undisclosed records for digital prints…and they came upon none. One could be forgiven for presuming then that any and all info has been encoded through and through…but I am questioning whether there was so much as a meeting.”

“And Simiris?”

“I’ve been incapable of scouting for the accuracy of her contributions, if she’s accountable or little else than another victim, but…I have my doubts.”

This unannounced insight was more than Zal had bargained for, but she can’t espouse a desire to unbuckle herself from it, given the reality that Val is her friend. She would never leave anyone behind.  
“Could it be that she staged her own death, you reckon?”

Lana grimaces at this, misgiving but equally unsure.  
“…no. Of all the things she’s prone to do, holding such a formula from me is not one of them. She wouldn’t terrify me like that.”

Or would she? Zal isn’t so bold as to reproach Lana of lying to herself…but is there not indecision secluded there in the posterior of her psyche?  
“Alright. So, presuming Val is breathing, and she’s been snatched by some unrevealed foe of yesteryear…what then? What would you have of me? I grasp well enough that it’d be unfit of us to let her suffer in someone else’s cell.”

“I’m powerless to pressure you into an undertaking you do not care for, but I would…plead for your assistance with finding a solution. For finding Val. I carry not much in the way of people that I believe in to that extent…but I trust you in all respects, forasmuch as Val did. Sometimes, I question whether she confided further in you than myself.”

Zal bears a contemplative aspect, but she spills nothing. For the time being.  
“Mm. I would warrant that we indeed have shared interests, in the event that Val has actually fallen afoul of some manner of treachery.”

“So, no word of a lie, you don’t have solitary trifle as to what Val might’ve experienced?”

Well now…for Zal to speak up on that note with an inadequacy for Val’s endeavors in the past…this wouldn’t be immeasurably in tune, would it? But even so, would it be conceivable for her to make it known to Lana, while Val hadn’t? Not prior to a touch of investigation on her own.  
Zal seals her cerebral pathways that are contactable with the Force, and then sways her head.  
“Nothing substantial that are within my grasp to call to mind at this moment. Val and I offered one another a marked bulk of inputs and details that we avoided circulating to others, but not a particle of what she referred to would trace a definitive target.”

Lana stares down with disappointment at the floor and intertwists her arms. Zal can’t dodge the pang of remorse it drips into her heart.  
“…I understand.”

“But…granting that you sincerely have a basis for that Val is kicking around, then I’ll fulfill everything in my power to work with you on tracking down the validity of it. Val was-… _is_ my friend, and a woman I patently cherish, which indicates that I shall never abandon her in a time of need. We’ll find her, Lana.”

Whilst she’s caught in a storm of glumness and desolation for her partner’s fate, Lana does manage a partial and dimly hope-infested twist of her mouth to a smile.  
“Thank you, for that much.”


	2. Chapter 2

Being raised to the seat of the Emperor’s Wrath has its uses beyond the most glaring ones, such as free and direct access to as good as the full-length of the Empire’s provinces and planets. One of the most fortunate aspects of winding up as the Wrath is how hands-off she’s eligible to be. She has no firm and duty-bound ties to a given planet or coalition or Sphere, or even so much as a designated Sith, minus the Emperor. This gets at that Zal’riva isn’t committed to report to anyone, but what’s more, she can come and go as she pleases, and no one surveils her steps. One day, the Tempest – her Fury-class Imperial Interceptor – may simply swoop in and be a thorn for some hard-lucked imperial officer, but they rarely have the chance or the permission to return the favor. And with that, Zal takes care to conduct her private businesses discreetly, off any radars.

One such trade of minds is on the rise this day, where Zal has transported her feet to an inhabited rim world of the Empire, one that is frequently wielded as a farm colony. Its landscapes and climates shift, of course, which is up to the precise destination or coordinates that one narrows down, but the ruling dwelled neighborhood is laden with fields, cultivational crafts and vehicles, not to mention being rare on facilities, services, marketplaces and people. It’s absolutely perfect for today.

Having made the journey here free of distractions of her crew and underlings, with her apprentice on a dissimilar mission and the soldiers making an effort to fill the gaps in military defenses, the solitary inclusion within Zal’s roster today is her droid, 2V-R8, the Tempest’s robotic butler and glorified cook and cleaner.  
She sets herself ashore on the fields of this world, a long way off towns or farms or civilization, and in principle anything that has even remote bearing on the conceit of fleshly socialization. But Zal isn’t frankly out to ditch the proximity of people lock, stock and barrel, for this withdrawal has a weight that draws her to someone which she has use for.

In this insulated station, tarrying for a stretch south of an hour, she runs her eyes along the dark skies of twilight and minds the sparing coil of thrusters. Up there in the firmament, a shuttle lances the clouds, tilts its nose and slopes to Zal’s quarters. On the grounds that it’s a model of shuttle, it does not outsize the Tempest, nor could it do a good job of outgunning her, but Zal does not view this transport in the vein of an affliction. This isn’t her first run-in with the man on board, and she doesn’t conceive of any malevolence arising from his surfacing. Plausibly, anyway?  
Then again, there is no love lost in the gorge of two demons, so she wouldn’t bet her life on that it’s out of his control to jump her the first chance he gets.

With the vessel’s hatch unlatching, Zal is deposited in knee-high straws of grass and a moderately dense underlying soil, right on ahead of her own ship, hands by her hips. Just on the off chance that he’s shortsighted enough.  
Descending the ramp plugged to the transport is a man. A weighty, inordinately-armored fellow, bald and red-tinged after her own exterior, albeit a lighter shade. Spurs and protuberances swell from his face, framed in the style of a moustache, beard, eyebrows and plenty beyond. His keen, fearsome gaze burns in bright scarlet. A tried-and-true Sith, guided by the ancient tenets. And when the semblance of him might trick or muddy someone – unlikely as that is – Zal is fit to lend credence to her perspective from the sensation which seeps out of the pureblooded Sith. It is arrant and unfettered dark side energy, one that is practically wallpapered atop his hide, and traps him in a whirlwind of shadow.

Her counterpart – or predecessor, more like – does not come off as flat-out fuming when making eye contact with the twi’lek, nor is he radically thrilled. For a Sith, he remains exceptionally tempered and self-sanctioned. The dark side is liable to swim upon his veneer, but his emotions are part-way dead, or at the furthest quite caged.  
“Lord Scourge”, Zal breathes when he is in hearing distance, “welcome to Durad Khit, the arse end of the Empire”, she states resoundingly, but not fundamentally infused with a cornucopia of whimsicality.

And it’s a negative on inspiring him to laugh, for the pureblood keeps his footing there, some twenty meters removed, staring at her blankly. Off to a wonderous start…  
“You surprise me, Wrath”, he retorts. And does she perceive a reflection of a barbed intonation in him? “So far away from your precious lover. Just you and I.”

Does he like that? Does he dig that he could, theoretically, gain an opening to end her for good?  
“I wouldn’t strive to burden Ktila with the issues we have on our hands today.”

This doesn’t assuage the weight that lumbers between the two, but mind you, that was not her intent from the outset. She could take or leave his judgement of her character, to be fair.  
“What then, lord Wrath, was so momentous that you felt inclined to summon me to this lump of valueless soil? I’m not in the habit of turning into anyone’s obliging pet.”

These two have looked in on one another in dribs and drabs, and no one encounter has been free of feistiness or the naked antagonism. Zal is on the verge of gagging for a truce.  
“Could we dispense with the name-calling and degrading for a day? Or an hour, if this is too long-range for your tastes. I bear subjects of greater importance with me.  
I placed the call to you so that we could discuss someone which you were quite in the loop on. Or more accurately, a…society which is bound to her legacy. Have you heard of the Revanites?”

There is an unabashed tightening of Scourge’s finger and jaw muscles, no matter whether Zal can’t distinguish blank fury from him.  
“Yes, but I carry very little in reference to them, provided that this was your entreaty.”

“In part, yes.”

“I was conscious of their existence in the Empire from the very first, but I kept my distance.”

“How so? Your goal was to eliminate the Emperor, was it not? You don’t suppose they were latent allies?”

He scoffs blatantly at her.  
“Not the grade of conspirators I would consort with. They gormlessly deify Revan, putting her on a pedestal she never asked for.”

“That’s a little harsh, don’t you think?”

“Quite the opposite. In fact, I’m utterly free of doubt that Raekah herself would be on my side.”

“How is it witless to cling to an ideal, permitting it’s the right path?”

“The reverence itself is not inane, but when you transform it into a cult of a person, _that_ is the instant where it is warped. That is the instant where it carries the risk of cultivating into a nation – or the birth of an Empire.”

Zal frowns, not fond of his proposal.  
“Revan is dead, and she was nothing like Vitiate.”

“Indeed, she was not. But those who profit from her reputation could devolve into it.”

Zal is ready to fire back with some form of reprisal, but finds herself not registering it as inadequate, or so much as incompatible with her own values, when it comes down to it.  
“At any rate, by this stage, you have surely caught wind of Valcera’s end.”

To start with, Scourge is at a loss, patchy at best for what she’s referring to. But then at last, he nods.  
“Ah, now I see. The fallen Councilor? Beyond doubt, I have received news of her last gasp, if mainly Republic-sourced propaganda. As skewed as the Empire’s, which is rich.”

“That is the thing – her partner, Lana Beniko, is unassailably footsure that she is very much alive, engulfed in a convoluted conspiracy or some such. The finer points are somewhat extended.”

Scourge crosses his arms tediously.  
“This is the fundamental soul of Sith politics.”

“But you’re off beam – if Lana is to be believed, this is in reality beyond paltry Sith squabbling. And I myself have…certain wagers.  
Did you know that Valcera herself numbered among the Revanites?”

This actually marks him down as being caught off guard, for he raises one of his eyebrow spurs.  
“Was she? And how did you come by this knowledge?”

“Is that not fairly lucid? I was at one point a sort of tagalong of theirs. Few steps short of a member.”

“They invited you into their fold?”

“Count on it. I struck them as harboring beliefs that matched up and I acceded to this truth as well.”

“But you never entered their pact.” More so a proclamation than an inquiry.

“No. Even though I considered their mantras and creeds to be something I was grabbed by, I am not a woman who assigns and inhibits myself to collectives of this persuasion.”

“Cults.”

“…yes, yes…”

Scourge thus shrugs.  
“Then I daresay I had the right of it – you _are_ smarter than you behave.”

Zal’s brow jerks and her fingers close, but she doesn’t retaliate. He has a history of going on in this vein with insults of this breed and it does prick her. She can’t escape that. He yearns to get a rise out of her, but it won’t be this casual.  
“In any case, I would ask you whether you have gained any pointers at their recent whereabouts.”

“Me? How peculiar that you would broach this, as surely you are better filled-in than I?”

“It’s not that straightforward”, Zal confesses. “I’m hooked in on an inconsiderable amount of bare outlines of where they’re roaming, but like clockwork, their olden bases are empty and cleaned out. Operating as a shadow organization, they’re obligated to scramble out of sight on a regular basis.”

“Quite. I do have a memory of this. I discovered them imminently in the aftermath of their founding, but without exception, I left them to their own devices.”

“Why would you? The duty of the Emperor’s Wrath would call for you to expunge them, would it not?”

“I may have stood as his Wrath, but just as you, I was all for elements that resisted his rule – provided they were not imbeciles to a man. We were not peers, but my foremost goal was by a conforming level.  
Besides…” He then ruminates for a couple of ticks on his subsequent words. “Raekah…would not have wished me to.”

This shakes Zal up. Her beliefs mattered to him? For three hundred years?  
“And you care for what she reckons, do you?”

Scourge scowls all over, but draws his eyes apart. Did she…rattle him?  
“Brief as it was…” He then reverses and gazes at her with determination. “…she was my friend.”

He puts the lid on it here, with no surplus comments. But hey, makes sense, doesn’t it? To Zal at the very least. But it is a right eye-opener that a man of this emotion-bereft and severe quality would have his heart around the importance of friendship at that.  
“The motive behind me addressing you, in exchange for Ktila for instance, was that I had a hunch you might’ve been clued in on the Revanites and thereby which position they’re occupying.”

Sadly, Scourge shakes his head with denial.  
“I do not. I haven’t surveyed their traversals in a substantial length of time. In truth, not once did I downright watch them. They procured a great breathing room under my vigil, to move about and infringe on the Emperor’s habitats to their heart’s content, so long as they never collided with my designs. And they didn’t in the slightest.”

Zal laces her arms and puts her head to one side.  
“They _did_ virtually deify Revan, which you yourself affirmed earlier. I would’ve expected this was some form of breach.”

“Granted that Vitiate had set me with the imperative to butcher them, I would’ve promptly followed orders. But he was none the wiser, and consequently, they were none of my concern.”

“But their worship of Revan, it’s reasonable that this practice embraces her person, her history and her travels. They did hunt her mask for dear life, as I recall.”

“Perhaps.”

“Then points of interest of hers stand a chance of being ones which they make a practice of enshrouding themselves in. Would you know of any apt spots for this?”

Scourge meditates upon the topic for a cursory duration and then lifts his shoulders.  
“Raekah was not commonly prone to make her mark at any singular positions in the Empire. Her ends did not permit her to stay in one area for protracted periods or leave behind articles for others to dig up. With that, whatever leavings they’ve picked up are either fancies or whispers which I would have serious reservations whether they form any support in truth.”

“But isn’t it feasible that the Revanites fetched some surviving morsel or hearsay as to her wanderings, and then made something of it? Presuming you can offer me minor leads, I can work with that.”

Scourge spins his eyes, tired of her nagging, but has a solid grasp of that she won’t lay down her arms over this.  
“I’m fit to supply you with generic sites where her feet landed, but I’d reason it shan’t avail you to narrow it down by far.”

“Right now, a solitary tip to bring me even a centimeter closer will satisfy me.”

He then yields with a faint swinging of his head and around the time that she grasps her datapad, Scourge relates any and all stations where he’s capable of recollecting that Raekah treaded some scant hundreds of years ago.  
Having typed the whole works into her tablet, Zal pockets it and knocks around an overview of the infodump inside her skull. There’s a truckload of _capabilities_ that they’ve gone radio silent at each and every example of these spaces which Scourge cited, but none of them sticks out parallel to a staging ground. She experiences a phase of being lost in this mire of foggy roads, but…no. She can’t roll over now. Not at a time where Lana is counting on her to pull out all stops to discover Val.

“Much obliged for the assist. With any luck, I’ll amass a crumb of the trail to these bastards, as a minimal level.”

“Your possibilities are sincerely poor, but I won’t keep you from your incurability.”

Zal grunts with marginal humor and then wheels about, hefting her hand adjoining her shoulder.  
“Look after my girlfriend in the interim, will you? She’s ever the troublemaker.”

Scourge blows air from his nose.  
“Sometimes I feel that you deserve each other.”

“And I happen to agree.”


	3. Chapter 3

_This night, it commences as a torrent, a fierce momentum of air particles that rushes to her face and batters her senses into borderline submission whilst she tries to cotton onto where she’s heading. It isn’t until very late in the procedure that she realizes how she’s descending straight through the atmosphere swifter than her eyes can adjust, and her mind imprints her with what maneuver would save her skin._  
_And then, before she can answer her own questions, she is submerged dead into an outlet of water, a staggering ocean, one that lies beyond the regular extensions of such spheres, and cuts it close to shawl the full world, the globe she has docked in. Seeing as the liquid does not obscure her eyesight, visions of underwater landscapes permeate her judgment. The ingredients of this mess is on the one hand sea creatures, vegetation which is sustained at the bottom, stone, and light which works uphill to last in an arena that does not need it. But this doesn’t exclude facilities, stupendous edifices of metal which bunches out of the ocean floor and practically to the surface of the blue infinity._  
_And lastly, to finish the drowning sensation of perplexing images that fill her mind, a voice joins the chorus, one that she is enlightened of, but at the same time, it’s so foreign. Like it doesn’t belong here where she has privacy. A man, she is fairly positive of that. Or a monster…_

_“To acquire the perfect soldier…one must construct it. Program the ideals into their very essence – the commands of destiny.”_

_In the flavor of being yanked around like a ragdoll, this vision is one that she retires from aversely, someone tearing her elsewhere. She’s slingshotted out at a gait she can hardly unpack and is teleported across the galaxy, sinking to an undisclosed area. The upcoming planet she plummets inside of serves her with a hellacious wind that traverses along sweeping plains and expanses of sandy white deserts, intermingled with erupting lava pits and mountains so sharpened that she all but senses them slicing her. On high, it is murky and obstinate – not all crackling as it does on Dromund Kaas’ sky, but still dire. The dark side is present, but it is not overbearing._  
_Meandering by the ground, in moments, she reaches a cluster of buildings, something which she would identify as potentially temples, rising up with a clear incisiveness. Staring more intently, she sees statuses flanking a noticeable percentage of the grounds, which there is an argument for that they represent robed personalities. They stare down with no less than an autocratic undercurrent upon living people that are…fighting? Training perhaps? Sparing it might very well be. She would assess it as a neighborhood of practicing Force users, on course for being Sith, but these do not enlist lightsabers or training sabers by any measure, but staves and vibroblades._  
_The voice she was visited by earlier, the grating and insidious tone, it talks to her here again._

_“They must obey. They must learn nothing else than the absolute truth of your word. Then, you shall have your weapon. The bounty of the Force.”_

_For a third instance, she is punted away, thrown athwart the spacetime continuum and in this spell, she ripples through the earth of the planet, but her conviction that she’d land at the countering end of it and exit into space once more is inaccurate._  
_Trading for this is a fresh landscape which she opens her irises to, and she believes this is a discrete planet, judging from the blue and softer heavens that she spectates. She sails by some description of jungle or coastal area, where she spies a vast sea. A settlement does unshield itself, a huge junk town, with dirty complexes and cheap big-city aesthetics that have been jammed inside a milieu untorn by society. Dwelling here are rowdy, delinquent folks, gun-shooting and raiding, but making headway onwards, she realizes that there are exceeding facets. Serene pools, dominating mountains, jungles with deviate flying man-sized birds that converse with one another and barters with the ruffians. Lastly, she partakes of a manner of training location or arena, shortly flooded with fighters held in blaster-proof metal, unbreakable._  
_The foreboding call naturally does not leave her to wallow in these pictures without adding its exclamations._

_“Wrath…Justice…mine, whole and hearty. The tools by which this mortal shell shall know a new horizon.”_

_It wouldn’t be unfeasible to address that she prearranges herself for the fourth example of a vision, albeit she is not tossed into the earth or the sky this time, but hurtles into hyperspace. She anchors in a locale which she would delineate as a gloomy swamp, of crooked trees, pits of murky water and drooping vegetation. At first, she is fooled to assume that it carries on into endlessness, dragging across the whole planet, infested with beasts and creatures of shining eyes that stalk the umbral patches._  
_But amidst this field that nearly inspires her to shiver, she notices an offshoot which pulls her attention – a gigantic tower that pokes up and pierces the heavens. And then another. And another. In interstices which prolong for miles upon miles, they loom. And at one session, staring at these monumental artifacts of artificial design, a swarm of creatures bursts out, roaring off in every direction, to blanket the morass in their jurisdiction, their blaster fire. To her, they seem oddly akin to droids. And accompanying them, who’d have thought – it’s the voice, her constant harrowing dreammate._  
_No, that’s…that’s not right. It’s now being coupled to…a separate one. An additional personality? One she can’t place._

_“Does my ambition truly surprise you, father?”, an apparent man blurts smugly._

_“You do not have ambition…”, counters the stalker, “…only_ jealousy _.”_

_Then, at last, the fogginess which has been hinting and prowling at the verges of her eyes clutches her, imprisoning her in its cage and strives to devour her from tip to toe. She is ensnared, jammed between a wall of cement, and being buried alive.  
  
_

* * *

  
In cohesion with an aghast shriek and pitching her body up 90 degrees, she comes alive, fingers constricting the quilt of her bed in a reflexive action, her perception scanning the surroundings wildly, exerting herself to snatch at the conscious world, to cinch that she’s alive for real and not webbed in a version of a nightmare which draws out its choking of her and yearns to devour her soul to the point where it’s suited to just about gnaw at the bones of a bloody meal.

Jedi Master Ktila, the hero of Tython, brushes her fingers gingerly atop her upper-back-length dark blue-black hair that’s sopping in sweat, fingers the warm dark-blue skin of her cheeks where these droplets are making their road down from her forehead in the middle of her slip, and the faintly lambent pupil-less and crimson eyes bolt from threshold to threshold to put the pieces of her scrapped brain together. The chiss gets chills as she feels her heart pulsating, cascading in her chest which it solely does on days where it’s exposed to passions of heat, anger or war.

Was that a dream she was just subjected to, or is this the dream? Was that the tribulations of her past or a divination of the future? Or somewhere broiled in the liminal spaces for which her hands are tied in the deciphering? Sometimes the Force can be a downright pain in the ass, as it infrequently breaks down what it is reporting to her and in spite of that she’s a Jedi, she’s never procured the patience for unriddling the clues.

The cover of her bed inside her cabin located aboard the Defender-class light corvette, the ‘Shielded Path’, has up to now been shoved aside, exposing her lying across it, clad in a grey unvarnished shirt and white underwear, her toned, passingly slim and equally well-figured physique visible within the limits to those who would look. She gets into a seated pitch, buries her face in her hands, hoping to gather her thoughts, and recede her pumping breath, though she doesn’t have an easy time of it, with the memories so young.

But she doesn’t languish in confinement, for the door to her quarters unlatches and breezes open, where two pairs of feet plus a fraction of wheels roll inside.  
“Ktila! What’s going on?! We heard your yell from the media block!”, calls a concerned voice.

Uplifting her sight, Ktila distinguishes the prevalent demeanor of the red-haired, light-skinned comely visage and habit of her crew member, Kira Carsen, bolting towards her. The human gets across the room forthwith, up to the bed and kneels. Ktila’s former padawan who…to set the record straight, was never a padawan of hers to begin with. There is a three-year pocket which divides them, but that only emphasizes Kira’s relations to her as a faintly younger sister, to whom she shares strong bond. One she adores dearly.

“I…I wasn’t-…I dunno, I just…” Ktila swallows and levels a hand ahead of her eyes, exhaling. “Sorry, my mind is working hard on unfolding what the hell I saw. The images are…blurry.”

“Can…can we offer any aid with this, master?”, utters a slightly meeker expression.

They are words awoken by someone who meets the skirt of the human’s age, but her features contrast. Although she jibes with Kira by that she is clothed in brown, white and dark blue robes at this moment, her outside presents a violet shade, painted in white facial tattoos, rather substantial maroon and white montrals and lekku, and elsewise a vibrant green eye color. Her height doesn’t perfectly expand to the human’s, and her form is a little rounder. She is the legitimate padawan standing in this residence, and like Kira, she was implanted to be a Child of the Emperor, who was not detected until _after_ his perceived ‘death’, which has been astounding to Ktila around the clock.  
Baeleki, the togruta they withdrew from a mining colony, who pursued Kira on her own. Quite entertainingly, it is the chiss which she refers to by the moniker ‘master’, whereas her actual teacher is simply ‘Kira’. Despite her best efforts, it is Ktila who _acts_ further associated with the behavior of a master…in broad strokes, anyhow.

“I don’t know if I can determine that”, Ktila tells her, “as I have to call into question what I myself caught sight of. I suffered something that’s…hard to give an idea of.”

“Dreams?”, wonders Baeleki. “Scary ones?”

“Mm, they were, but…well, it’s cryptic to call them that.”

Kira’s gaze shimmers with mild understanding.  
“Visions, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah…yeah, that seems consistent with them.”

They get a load of a measure of beeping then, and the binary ejected out of a white and blue-colored astromech is a tongue that Ktila can translate. But furthermore, the being itself is one who’s close to her heart – T7-O1.  
“Jedi = Distressed? // T7 + Kira + Baeleki = assist in assuaging? // Drink of water = solution? // Organics + H2O = often refreshing end.”

Heh. It’s sweet to see him so careworn. But having said that, it is preordained, for T7 is her lengthiest companion, and he has had lessons taught to him of what Jedi affairs can inflict on her.  
“I’m fine”, she insists. “…or along those lines.”  
She rubs her own arm and Kira gets up to plant herself within Ktila’s personal space, half hugging her. Baeleki ascends to a spot next to Kira’s, laying down her head on her master’s shoulder. Ktila sighs in defeat.  
“I dreamt of…a range of worlds, and occurrences on them, but the precise destination of these prospects fled me. Plus, they were in conjunction with…a voice I recognized.”

Then, a more bass intonation spawns from the doorway of the cabin, a buzz which sets a frown on Kira.  
“Was it possibly our prey’s?”, this man asks.

Looking up, the four companions receive visibility of a man being raised there, his arms entwined – Lord Scourge. Incidentally, he is her second ‘newest’ ally, however he has engaged with them now for roughly three years, the person who finalizes what could be thought of as their little…eccentric family. A family which is on the hunt for a man, the creature who traumatized them down to the last person – the Sith Emperor, Vitiate. He was designed to have been killed in their showdown at Dromund Kaas, by Ktila’s own lightsaber, but none of them have faith in such tenebrous facts – not when he is someone who can transcend mortal flesh.

“Yes”, Ktila substantiates, “it could’ve been no one else than him. Vitiate...”

Listening to her say the name itself colors Baeleki and she trembles at the mention, pressing nearer to Kira.  
“The Emperor again…”, she mumbles, frightened. For being one of his ‘children’, she never postures herself resembling the child of a Sith, or what they’ve heard of the remaining Children. Then again, this is expected to be for the better.

Kira gives the pureblood, who she doesn’t favor regardless, the cold-shoulder and channels herself at Ktila.  
“Are you well enough to chat about the dream?”

The chiss shrinks somewhat and bobs her head.  
“Yeah. Although…could I have that glass of water? My throat is stale, now that I consider it.”

Kira nods, tenderly rubbing Ktila’s arm and then sweeps up to bolt away. Meanwhile, Baeleki grasps Ktila’s hand, hoping to solace her. Granted, this doesn’t come out in that vein – with the fashion that Ktila enfolds her, it almost looks as if the reverse pans out.  
With Kira recovering her place around them and the chiss drinking the mug she’s handed in all but one go, Scourge is by this phase housed in the room, tipping into a wall with his arms crossed, whereas T7 is projecting a variety of images in holographic form for Ktila to regain her concentration and to stay in the  
moment. Thereafter, Ktila informs them verbatim what she beheld in the visions, and the words which were like a magnet to their surface. The emotions that boiled in the respective places.

In the aftermath, the room is quiet, grave in thought. T7 is first to break the ice.  
“T7 = Not have each location stored in databanks // Master Ktila + Sith friend Zal’riva = Visit first planet together?”

The chiss’ head undulates in agreement.  
“I’m of one mind with your assessment, T7 – that did strike me as Manaan. It damn right carried the… _vibe_ of Manaan as well. Even if I was only around on a kind of vacation. No idea what type of business the Emperor would put there either…”

From her seat, Kira snorts derogatorily.  
“That asshole had projects all over the fucking galaxy, so wouldn’t surprise me in the least that he’s lurking with some crap over there too.” Once she’s spoken these words, she freezes and glances sideways at her padawan.  
“Uh…disregard the erm…’fucking’ part, okay? Wasn’t very Jedi-y, huh? Dunno what master Kiwiiks would tell me now, heh…”  
But Baeleki giggles and embraces her caringly.

The pureblood in the team, however, is lost in a frown, looking reasonably troubled when staring into the floor. Ktila does notice.  
“Scourge, what is it?”

Bereft of meeting her gaze, the pureblood grunts.  
“It puts me on edge that I cannot drink in the memory of the majority of these worlds you’ve traced. I was never at Manaan…and the sentences you described were even beyond disturbing. This man you processed…he genuinely spoke of Vitiate as ‘father’?”

“Well, I can’t say he elaborated about it, but yes, that was his phrasing.”

“Hmm…it is a concept wholly unfamiliar to me. Vitiate has no ‘true’ children – that is, ones he would’ve been a part in bringing to life. Merely slaves he pervaded with his ‘gifts’, such as these whelps.” He motions at Baeleki and Kira. “In like manner, none of them, to my knowledge, referred to him as ‘father’. They addressed him in terms of ‘master’.”

Kira aims a hard scowl at him, almost spitting her upcoming syllables.  
“I’d _never_ in a million Force-damned years use either of those two words for that sonuvabitch.”

“Quite so”, Scourge agrees. “The Children of the Emperor discuss him but with deference or hatred, not in familial labels. Be that as it may, I am suited to identify one of the given worlds – the second. The summary you left us falls suspiciously in line with Habuure no Aakin.”

“Habur…what?”, wonders Kira.

“Habuure no Aakin. It is a dialect of ancient Sith, meaning ‘Like the fallow summer’.”

Some whirring erupts from T7, searching his databanks. But he goes, “Haabure no Aakin = Missing name in Republic records.”

“I expected nothing less”, says Scourge. “It is a remotely isolated and obscured world, a primordial training ground for the Imperial Guard, one of several. In each, they are constructed to resemble temples, where one section of the education is to exercise and propagate their strength and prowess to battle Force users, and the second part is praying and immersing themselves in deification of Vitiate. The world by its very nature is soaked in a swath of his darkness, not unlike other ports.”

Ktila is absent for a couple of seconds, running a finger along her lips.  
“Do you have the coordinates to it? Could you steer us to that world?”

“It’s within my control, yes, despite that I’ve called on this world only twice and the previous occasion was…ah, it must be a century now, at the absolute least.”

Ktila frowns and strains her fingers, setting down her glass on a night table.  
“Then that’s where we’re going.”


	4. Chapter 4

It is a dusky and strained day which meets the skies of Kaas City, as Lana gets across the Imperial Citadel to Valcera’s private quarters in the installation. Some reasonably could debate that this is just like any other day, but for Lana, it somehow beckons the dawn of an original age, or if nothing else a shift in its onrush. 

Once she had gathered with Zal’riva surrounding the deal with her beloved, she at least scooped up some bravery to enlarge the range and reach out to figures she had calculated would be of likened sentiment.  
But one shouldn’t take this the wrong way and presume she hasn’t communicated with them previous to the funeral, for she has had more than a couple of sit-downs with them. But what she hasn’t ventured is daring to level a finger onto is the landmine of Val’s fettle, as there is so much at stake. Perhaps it wouldn’t be unfair to infer that it’s made her hesitate, as she herself far within wonders if she’s just so mad with grief that she refuses to accept the validity. But no, she won’t be dissuaded. She _is_ correct and Val is breathing.

This day, standing upon the metal platform in the center of the Councilor’s accommodations, she bides and programs herself for the admission of a trio of faces. As they wade in, she takes their measure – the first is a human of a cute countenance, a jot of centimeters below Lana, dark brown hide, pretty low-drawn bob-cut black hair, outfitted with an imperial uniform. It is Ensign Francine Daimort, Val’s adjunct in the year or two-year lead-up. She can be imagined as unwell, like she’s lost sleep, the rings around her eyes being tokens of her state. Lana is more than conscious that she is not simply devastated by the loss of Val, but her own girlfriend, Simiris, who was accounted for in Val’s entourage, and they’ve received no tells from her. 

The second is a man, the hulking presence of the dashade Khem Val, who has passed into a ubiquitous likeness to her in the few weeks’ development, owing to that they interact regularly. She wouldn’t hint at that she trusts him past Zal, but she pictures with some affirmation that he has an intent to warrant Val’s safe return. The two of them were interwoven on a spiritual plane, despite that it was quite a surreal one to Lana. 

The third participant is one of orange skin, peaked by white and blue montrals and lekku which breeze down along her shoulders, shrouded in black and red robes – the old apprentice of Val, the togruta Ashara Zavros, one of her earliest companions as of the mirialan’s campaign to accumulate a seat on the Dark Council. Or more strictly speaking, Val was clawing her way through survival against the shadows of the Council who aspired to crush her.   
Ashara was promoted to a full-blown Lord as recent as last year, with the boon of Val herself, but she has stuck around as one of the Councilor’s most tight-knit companions, and Val ever saw the not-quite-Sith as a never-failing compeer. This is the commitment which Lana has adjusted herself for as well, for she can’t imagine Ash double-crossing her. As a mirror to the affinity of the Jedi Ktila and Kira Carsen, Ash is on par with a sister to Val. 

The player she hasn’t appealed to is the kaleesh ex-apprentice, Lord Xalek. Lana doesn’t hold anything notably against the man and he has some desirable gifts, but contrasted with Ash, he has partially seen fit to go his separate way. Technically, he does still ‘serve’ Val as an Ancient Knowledge retainer, but his objective is set on enriching himself as an independent Sith, to exalt the standards of his people and his ancestors, to rise as a style of god. Or words to that effect. His symbiosis with Val wasn’t lesser, merely different. Nonetheless, it’d be a strain to call the two of them family. Xalek gravitates towards a conservative Sith rationale, where the master is a means to an end. Which is a left-field solution, come to think of it, for much like Val, he was a slave. For reasons not known, he esteems the time-honored arrangements of the Sith, where Val didn’t. _Doesn’t_.

“Good morning, all three of you, and welcome. I’m relieved you had no trouble coming to see me here, under the circumstances.”

Khem shrugs unburdenedly, Ash issues a small nod, whilst Francine clears her throat.   
“Yes, it’s certainly been…quite a few weeks. I’m convinced everyone has been busy with their own activities.”

Lana unavoidably leads her sight to the assistant.   
“I have to acknowledge you’ve made me somewhat worried, Ensign. Are you coping?”

Fran expires a breath, herself staring down at the floor.  
“I’ve felt a bit…in over my head, but…yes, mainly. I’ve needed to use various matters as a measure of…anchor to the world. Largely my work, which speaks for itself.”

“That’s good”, Lana accedes. “I know that concept well. When the galaxy shakes the foundations of your day, it’s convenient to be absorbed by something. But…much the same as Val was keen on contending with me, don’t overdo it. You can’t sabotage yourself with the grief.”

Fran’s brow sinks and she folds her arms, scraping them with her nails.  
“I know…I know this is true. That you’re right, but…it’s hard. I continuously turn back time to the day of my final words to her, and how it’s…how this is…the sum of what she’ll ever know. Could I have taken other steps, to remap the future? It’s silly, but…”

Lana doesn’t unload it, but she is in a proportional boat, having taken up conclusions and doubts which partners the sorrow now felt by Francine, before she judged that Val isn’t, _couldn’t_ have met her end.   
Ash on the other hand, is absent in tone and exterior, but she does speak.  
“I too have had better days. It’s tough to…let it hit you with what’s occurred. That my master would perish along these lines.”

Lana frowns and nods, crossing her arms.  
“I’m on the same page, Ashara…but this is primarily given that it’s impossible to put trust in the story we were fed.”

Fran looks up.  
“What do you mean?”

She then lays it all on them, coloring in the full extent of what she’s had a taste of and heard, her heartfelt reaction to the funeral, and the whole shebang framing it, which comes with the appointment, and assemblies Val went to, and her vanishing. She doesn’t forget to bring up her council with Zal, and that Wrath was slated to investigate this enigma. 

In harmony with her own reflex, they partake of it all, incrementally and resolutely, capturing that they’re inundated in a complex and due to be thoroughgoing conspiracy.   
“Well, this is…a lot”, Fran finally wises them up with. “Plenty beyond what I had thought we were in for. Void’s bells, that lord Imperius would be targeted to such a degree, it’s…unspeakable.   
But for me…” She slides her fingers via her neck, eyes sparkling with a sentiment of vitality. “There is now a trace of…hope. I was assured that Sim had fallen with lord Imperius, as she weighed in that she was attending some venture with her, but…but now, maybe…maybe she pulled through?”

Lana derives a glimpse of suspicion in her own chest, which persists in being routed at this so-called representative. But in service of compassion of Fran’s constitution, and not to bruise her emotions, Lana does not give voice to it.   
“Anything is possible”, she says in place of anything negative. “We can’t predict what in fact took place there.”

Khem speaks with the contribution of a translation gizmo today, discounting that he doesn’t naturally take pleasure in employing them, for he finds they bereave him of his intimidating tone and character.   
“I do not mistrust what you have communicated, because I likewise am of the position that my master has stayed strong in rising to this latest challenge. My alignment with her, which was forged at a juncture that followed our initial clash, has not fallen astray and I would’ve had insight of it disassembling, assuming she was plainly dead. That is how profound it is.”

Lana coasts a hand down her chin.  
“Hmm. Could this kinship share calibers with a Force bond?”, she asks out loud.

“I am blind to such subjects, to answer it. I am no Force user and have never had an appetite to fathom my meals. But I can point you towards how my present ties was molded - at the start, I was chained to her by submission, on account of that she bested me in combat when I was disturbed from my imposed slumber. But not much of a term elapsed for her to reprove herself that she had enthralled me. She spoke of that she was a freed slave and the conceit of squeezing someone else into that life left a sour taste in her mouth. Despite that I had resolved to tolerate my lot, I was not ungrateful of that she rent the clasps upon me. This yielded me the chance to apply myself for her electively.   
With my choice made, my revised connection was solidified. I plugged myself to her as a manner of promise, a vow to bow to a master, as I lauded her prowess and strength. In some ways, this digs deeper than an ordinary relationship would.”

“Well”, says Ash. “I’ve heard wookiees can have a practically synonymous oath to people, but one out of debt.”

With her voice fully awakening to the conversation, Lana steers her gaze to the togruta.  
“Ashara, are you okay? I don’t wish to put you on the spot to expose every vulnerability or feeling, but I’m under the idea that you have been…absent from time to time.”

Ash herself glances at the human, her arms folding at an even pace.   
“Well, I have been…stuck in mourning of her, to an extent. An exhaustive extent, truth be told…” She lets her face plummet. “Valcera was my master, a mentor in the Force and in life. The two of us showed each other great affinity and devotion. I was perpetually taught by the Jedi that this variety of interaction would be harmful for a Force users’ development. I wouldn’t have said we were on track for this when we first laid eyes on one another, and the Jedi Masters would discredit me with every ounce of their being, but…I loved her. _Love_ her. Almost like…like an older sister or something. I’ve never had one of those, not until her. She was the one who got me to grips with that the Jedi was wrong to some measure, that your heart and senses aren’t to erase and be kicked to the curb, if you know what you’re doing with them, if they can be maneuvered.”

But the yellows of Lana’s eyes narrow, dissecting the togruta not only on the outside, but within.   
“There’s more to this, isn’t there? You are given to an excess of…expressiveness whenever you’re faced with these impasses. But you’re quite suppressed here. What gives?”

Ash stares at the human, her brow contracting, and there’s a lucid presentation of unhappiness on her.  
“…was it so easy to unfurl it?”, she mutters, not best pleased that she hasn’t improved aboard this field. She then sighs and crosses her arms, likely pensive of whether she’s invested in spilling her innermost impulses.   
“You…you have the right of it. Rubs me the wrong way that it’s not a world apart from how she tends to figure me out either…”

Lana smiles knowingly.  
“Val shared everything with me revolving her intimate standpoints. Or…the brunt of them.”

Ash sighs.  
“I give up. I was hoping to conceal it so I could look into this on my own, but…  
Being real for a moment, as if Valcera’s dispersal wasn’t bad enough, I have had some problematic sequences in my private life, which I had assumed wasn’t associated with this.   
I was patently hit by the news of what became of Valcera, but relative to yours, Lana, I have an inner pact with her which is deep and unbreakable, as master to apprentice. I was distressed by the Holonet headlines given that I hadn’t detected my master’s fall through the Force, as I would’ve done under normal circumstances. I thus held my own theories, but chose to muffle them before I could get into some fieldwork and discern the legitimacy of it. Enemies are far and near. Valcera…well, she taught me that too.  
All the same, this was not my one-off concern. In recent times, Bejarah has gotten lost too.”

“Bejarah?”, wonders Lana. “She has departed?”

“Yes, and I don’t know where.”

Lana can’t mislay the actuality of this woman either, the rattataki which has operated for Val in the past couple of years. Indeed, she entered the picture practically simultaneously with Lana. Apparently, the two of them were confidantes from an earlier episode in Val’s career, along her apprenticeship. She then grew close to Ash, on a plane of attraction.   
The staging area for the two of them were at a level of teasing from Bejarah towards a testy Ash, which uncloaked the rattataki’s true intentions, and in due course, Ash warmed up to it. Descending from that occasion, they’ve been together. And Lana is not put off by the relationship, nor Bejarah’s addition, for she has been a conspicuously loyal friend to Val. 

“How long ago was this?”, asks Lana. 

“Two weeks, at most. She made mention of that she had some business to carry out beyond the Empire’s borders, make some calls and chitchat with some allies. I could see that…Val’s demise had shaken her, no matter whether she demonstrated this in mildly offbeat ways. She sounded a good deal suspicious, as opposed to saddened. Being that I was mindful of that Val couldn’t feasibly be gone, I had questioned that there was an off chance this had bearing on Valcera and Bejarah’s joint past, but at my probing, she chose to keep it to herself. This isn’t essentially an uncommon fact, but what is odd is that she hasn’t returned. I tried to fix some contacts to her, but she’s unavailable on all of the regular channels we’ve laid down.   
It’s not right to imply that we’re on hand for one another every waking moment, but the rule is greater than what’s happening of late. Two weeks have rolled around and the only response I’ve had is silence. As a matter of fact, we established a personalized message account for the eventualities where there may be some type of critical scenario, but she won’t answer that either.”

Lana rubs her cheek in contemplation.   
“Hmm. Could this be affiliated with Val’s dilemma? Her fading is in the midst of a strikingly timely spell, and therefore, it wouldn’t be impossible that she’s complicit.”

But regarding this, Ash frowns.  
“If you’re trying to get at that she’s guilty, then no way. I refuse to believe that she’d be responsible for this. I would’ve struck upon the existence of that long before, in our time together.”

“How so?”

“Well, it’s pretty plain that she and I had a great…chemistry. We…we were…” At this notch, she falters to a light degree, trying to beat down some shy streaks which are working their way up to the surface. “…very intimate, on a regular basis. I…I peeked into her awareness, her mind, her…desires. She showed her hand on multiple occasions, as she was very alert to what it entailed to click with a Force user. It’d defy belief that she could seal the truth from me in those instances.”

“Unless she was trained and specialized to manage Force users”, Lana counters. “Don’t bet against the likelihood of such measures, for there’s an overflowing rate of organizations who steel themselves for the contention which Force users pose. In fact, we have one here in the Empire – the Imperial Guard is an instance of such an Order, which are arduously built to combat us surpassing anyone else.”

Ash is not tremendously keen to hear these words, really despising that her girlfriend would be made a target, but she withal doesn’t bear any convincing arguments against it. She jerks her head.   
“It’s not a matter of wagers – I _know_ Bejarah isn’t a culprit. And at any rate, I plan to discover the truth, prove her innocence.”

“Ah, I am not one to call your search off, as this is the gist of my summoning your entire trio to this facility. You three, all the way to and including Zal’riva, are the figures which I would turn to as regards Val. She had every confidence in each of you and I can’t glean that this conviction was misplaced in any fashion. If there’s anything I’ve been taught by being with her for the last nearly two years, to unravel the mystery, I can but follow the guidelines of cooperation. Who is chargeable, where is Val, how can we pull her out of captivity – topics to fulfill one and all. And we won’t draw any decisive judgments prior to following through a broad-gauged research.   
So, can I count on you?”

Fran bows her head bereft of hesitation.  
“Everywhere and everywhen, my lord. I’m thrilled to support this and set to work right away.”

Khem grunts, folds his arms and nods gravely.  
“Strength is everything, but no one is permanently strong. I can appreciate this. Come to this, I would sweep the galaxy for her and harbor her from these miscreants.”

Ash dips her head marginally with the others.   
“To locate Valcera and Bejarah, I’ll do anything.”

Lana smiles, heartened.  
“Then we undertake this shoulder to shoulder.”


End file.
